


The Sinner's Song

by youmeandcece



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Dark Magic, Fantasy, Gen, Harry Potter - Freeform, Magic, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmeandcece/pseuds/youmeandcece
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This as an explaination of how Tom Riddle came to power but set it in a normal high school environment (albiet a religious and elite private school) to make it a little more relateable. Tom thinks nothing can stop him when suddenly he meets Gayle, an antisocial and aloof girl who tells him things that he's never known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some parts (for example the first chapter) are really similar to some parts in the sixth Harry Potter book, but they're essential to my storyline.  
> And I own nothing to do with Harry Potter.

As twenty three other sixteen year olds in Tom Riddle’s Christian Apologetics class, a required course at his school, stood up, Tom intentionally knocked his books off his desk. As the other students filed out of the classroom, talking and laughing loudly, Tom slowly gathered his things off his desk.  
“Look alive, Tom.” said Tom’s professor, Professor Baumann. He was young - barely thirty years old, but extremely knowledgeable about what Tom wanted information on.  
“Professor Baumann, is it alright if I asked you a few questions about... some theories presented in this subject?"  
Tom's teacher looked at Tom through piercing blue eyes. “Doing some extra-curricular research, are you?”  
“I have some questions about the occult. The act of splitting your soul, immortality, and horcruxes -”  
“Why are you asking about this?" Professor Baumann cut him off. His sapphire blue eyes, which were perhaps his most outstanding feature, began to glow with caution. Perhaps he could see the hungry, almost deranged expression that was spread across Tom’s face.  
“Well... like you said, I’m simply doing some extra-curricular research. Some things that you mentioned in class last week happened to spark my interest.”  
The teacher began explaining, though he still looked rather cautious. “Horcruxes are among the evilest of things. Extremely dark stuff, and though the Bible is often looked to as a bright, good object, it also speaks of the evilest creatures ever known. I do not wish to share that sort of information with students. Too evil.”  
“But I’ve heard that horcruxes are beneficial - if you choose to overlook the darker side to those objects.”  
“If I?” Professor Baumann said incredulously, eyebrows raised.  
“I mean - things like magic and evil - the truth in the elements - surely, a professor like you - not in that way, of course -” said Tom Riddle. Despite the carefully placed hesitation and nervousness in his voice, he had been planning this moment for weeks. And it had worked, for Professor Baumann relaxed and said, “well, it wouldn’t hurt to help one of my brightest students. The occult is a many-faced thing. Religion speaks of demons often, and I believe strongly in evil, for if there is good, there is evil. There are groups of the evilest humans, and though they look normal on the outside they brew with angst and are bloodthirsty within. However, to delve deeper into the evil side of supernatural is to find horcruxes. You see, they prevent one from death. To create a horcrux one must split his soul - for if the body of one dies but the soul is still alive, he will live forever, become immortal.”  
“But, Professor, how would someone do that? How would someone become immortal using horcruxes?”  
“By committing a soul-splitting act, Tom. By going against nature. Murdering the innocent. For each innocent life the soul splits into another fragment.”  
“Surely someone has done it before? Sir?”  
“Perhaps it has been attempted, or perhaps it has been done. To split your soul once is -”  
“How do you take the fragments of your soul? What do you do with them?” Tom’s face lit up with an eerie, insane happiness. Professor Baumann stayed unawares, as he was staring out the window into the distance.  
“They are taken and inserted into an object of the person’s choice. While the object remains undamaged, the soul stays alive within the object. It is extremely difficult to destroy a successful horcrux. For example, simply flinging it into a fire or chucking it into the sea would not do.”  
“How do you take that part of a soul and put it into something?”  
“Well, there’s an invocation, several different spells, I am not sure.”  
“Do you know what kind?” Tom said eagerly.  
“My Lord, Tom, do I look like a murderer to you?” Professor Baumann snapped. His eyes traveled back to Tom’s face. “I’m religious! I teach a religious class! Do you honestly think that I would know how to commit one of the evilest acts known to man?”  
“I’m sorry, sir, but... I’m curious. I’m trying to research methods of religious rituals... What if someone did it more than once?” There was no hiding the hunger and insane light that was spread across his features now. Every last centimeter of his handsome features was alight with it. “What if they did it, say, seven times? Isn’t seven a magical num-”  
“To commit seven acts of murder!” Professor Baumann said loudly. “To even think of doing it once, let alone seven times! Tom, do not speak of this again, for this is among the evilest of magic in the world.” He looked cautiously at Tom, surveyed his long, straight nose, pale skin, and thick eyelashes. “Tom, whatever you have been looking into, stop. You do not want to mix with things like horcruxes, or people who have dealt with them. Go on, lunchtime has started.” With that, Professor Baumann stood and left the room, leaving Tom standing alone in front of his desk.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter, despite how much I may wish it. T_T

Tom hadn't expected his conversation with Professor Baumann to go as it had. His hopes had been set on a book recommendation, perhaps an old editorial, explaining the use of horcruxes and the role they played in the magical world. As he walked through the crowded school corridors, he was thinking deeply about why Professor Baumann had gotten so agitated. Tom thought that anyone who was as infatuated with religion as Professor Baumann could stand a little talk of evil.  
Tom’s teacher had been his last resort for information, having already scoured the library at school and the libraries around the area, the only choice he had left was the internet. So after classes had ended that day, and after most of the students had left campus, Tom went to the library, took one of the school’s old notebook computers, and sat himself down in a corner that was invisible to the librarians sitting at the desk. Suddenly, he realized that much of the internet had been censored by the school system. There was no choice but to ask the old, irritable librarian who was infamous for handing out detentions for things as small as laughing too loudly. However, Tom could be very persuasive, and he wasn’t going to let a barmy old librarian stop him.  
“Excuse me, Mr. Lawrensen, could it be possible for you to help me with a project I’m working on?”  
The librarian, who closely resembled a bear, looked up at Tom. “Shouldn’t you be home? It’s almost six o’ clock.”  
“I live here.”  
“Who are your parents?” Mr. Lawrensen said.  
“They’re dead.” Tom said shortly. He knew that the bluntness of the two words usually got him whatever he wanted.  
“Are you Tom Riddle?” The librarian vaguely recognized the boy, who had lived at an orphanage until the age of eleven, and been brought to the school to finish his secondary schooling. He lived on the seventh floor of the school, where many of the teachers and their families lived, for free, and didn’t have to pay any fees for his schooling. The librarian thought he looked rather haughty for someone with such a humble background.  
“Yes.”  
“Well, what do you need help with?”  
“You see, I’m doing a project for my Apologetics class. I’m studying the idea of evil, and how it can be such a large contrast to many of the things said in the Bible,” Tom said, thinking rapidly. “Of course, with evil comes things like death, ill thoughts, and Satan. I’m aware that those sorts of subjects aren’t quite appropriate for normal access, but this project is very important to me. Is it possible for the internet blocking to be lifted on the computer I will be using?”  
Mr. Lawrensen looked shrewdly at Tom. “And this is strictly for school usage?”  
“Of course, sir,” Tom flashed a reassuring smile.  
The old librarian sighed. “Alright, bring your computer over here.” He pressed some random buttons on the computer and then proceeded to harangue Tom about how poking into the wrong sort of information can completely ruin someone. After a ten minute lecture, the librarian finally handed the computer to Tom and told him that he had until nine o’ clock to look for information before the computer shut down.  
Tom reasoned that looking for horcruxes wouldn’t pay off well, as after scouring countless books the only information he had found was, “and a horcrux, an object of the darkest evil, shall never be spoken of, for when it comes to objects as dark as horcruxes, ignorance truly is bliss.” Instead, Tom first searched “become immortal”, which led to disappointing results. Most of the things he clicked on had been written by speculating editors, discussing the shared desire between politicians and scientists to live forever. “The Elixir of Life” produced similar results, the pages ranging from people claiming that such a remarkable object couldn’t possibly exist and others who believed that they were destined to find it.  
For almost two hours Tom scoured the internet, looking for any connections between soul-splitting, horcruxes, and immortality. He only stopped when a voice came from in front of him.  
“What’re you looking for?”  
Tom looked up and in front of him stood Sarah, the daughter of the principal of the lower school. She had copper colored hair, an extremely strong jawline, and very round eyes; the definition of a typical student from their school: happy, blissful, and completely ignorant.  
“Nothing you’d be interested in,” he said shortly, looking back down at the screen and hoping that being rude would cause her to leave. Sarah didn’t move.  
“Can’t you just leave me alone? And why are you at school, anyway? I don’t recall your family being one of my neighbors,” he said, without lifting his eyes off of the screen.  
“My dad’s in a meeting, and he won’t be finished until eight,” she said.  
“Well, spend your time elsewhere, Sarah. I’m in no mood to be distracted.”  
Much to his dismay, Sarah moved to sit next to Tom, and tried to peer at his computer screen. He slammed down the lid to his computer and glared at her. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” He snapped.  
“Why are you being so secretive? If you’re doing something for a project I hope you realize that I’m in almost all of your classes, so it might be a good idea to let me see what you’re doing.”  
Tom lowered his voice so the librarian couldn’t hear what he said. “I’m not doing something for something as menial as a school project, despite what many people” - he glanced at Mr. Lawrensen, who was inspecting a large tome - “may think.”  
“If they think you’re doing something wrong they’re going to expel you,” she said.  
Both of them knew all too well that Sarah was referring to the principals and the headmaster of their school.  
“They won’t catch me,” Tom said, and returned to his research once more. Sarah had no choice but to walk away, leaving the odd boy sitting by himself in a corner.  
At half past eight, when Tom had only half an hour left on his computer, he finally entered the words “horcrux”, “split soul”, and “immortality” into the search bar. After a few minutes, a single result showed. It was a webpage entitled, “existing outside of a physical body”, and Tom’s heart began to race. Perhaps this was it, what he had been looking for for almost two years. And when he clicked on the webpage it showed up blank except for a single paragraph, typed in capital letters, white text on a black background:  
WHEN I FIRST PUT THIS WEBSITE UP I DIDN’T ANTICIPATE A SHITSTORM OF HATE COMING FROM RELIGION INFATUATED IDIOTS. I HEARD THE INFORMATION FROM MY FATHER, WHO HEARD IT FROM HIS FATHER, WHO HEARD IT FROM HIS AND SO ON. THIS INFORMATION IS NOT MINE, AND BECAUSE OF THE AMOUNT OF ABUSE I HAVE RECEIVED I AM CLOSING THIS WEBSITE DOWN!!!  
Tom thought hard. If the owner of the website had said that he was going to close the website down, then it hadn’t been completely shut down yet... Tom went back to the original results page and clicked the button that said “cached”.  
He was led to a website titled “how to become immortal”. On the first page was a biography of the owner of the website, who claimed to have descended from an extremely dominant and magical family. On the second was a long page of information about horcruxes and immortality, and on the last was a page boasting how many times the website had been cited in various books and movies. The second and third pages was too long to read, so Tom printed off a copy of both and instead clicked on the author’s biography.  
Tom gathered three things from the biography: firstly, the author was considerably arrogant; secondly, the author hadn’t lied when he said that he had descended from a magical family; and lastly, the author lived in Paris. Tom realized that if he truly wanted some decent information on horcruxes, he would have to contact the author somehow. He scoured the biography page for some links to any social media, and found one link that lead to the author’s photo sharing website.  
“I love living in a city with such diverse people. I can see brainless, clueless tourists mixed in with rich locals mixed in with immigrants living in poverty,” was the caption to one photo of a hand pointing to the Eiffel tower.  
“Nothing makes me feel more special than a night out at the good old ICA,” described another photo, which was of a tall, black building with lights shining brilliantly from the inside.  
After flipping through a few more pictures, Tom was about to give up. The man seemed to be nothing but the shallow grandson of a billionaire grandfather. Tom began packing up his things when he spotted something on he first photo he’d never noticed before. The photo had been mostly focused on the Eiffel tower, but the person taking it was wearing a glove, and though small, the letters “L.A.S.” were clearly embossed on the black fabric of the glove. Excited, Tom went back to a default search engine and searched “L.A.S + Paris + ICA”. Only one result came, and it was a paragraph that seemed to be in some sort of a code:  
0 n07 7r 70 (0n74(7 m3 17 1$ 4n93r0$. 7h3 0 n07 73� 7h3m wh47 1$ h4pp3n1n9 4n 0 n07 37 7h3 b0 937 7h1$ |{n0w393. 1 0 n33 70 (0n74(7 m3 m nmb3r 1$ 0324571966  
“What the hell?” Tom muttered to himself. The only thing that he could distinguish was a ten digit number at the end of the paragraph. He pulled up a search engine again and put the number into it, and a copy of the Paris phonebook appeared on the screen, and the number was highlighted. Next to the number was the name “Lucian Adrien Smith”.  
He needed a phone. He wasn’t about to ask Mr. Lawrensen for a phone, for he knew that making an international phone call would raise extreme suspicion. Instead, Tom looked to his left and saw a mobile phone that had been left there.  
“Sarah,” he whispered excitedly. He knew that the girl rarely went anywhere without her phone. It must have fallen out of her pocket. As big of a nuisance as many people were they certainly did prove useful at times.  
Tom dialed the French area code and then the ten digit number, and held the phone up to his ear hesitantly. The phone rang, which meant that the number was authentic, but he didn’t know if someone would pick up or not.  
“Hello?” A sharp male voice picked up.  
“Good evening,” Tom said, wildly hoping that that was the local time in France. “Is this a Mr. Lucien Smith?”  
“What do you want?”  
“I came across something online and it seemed to link to you. I was going to ask you some questions about horcruxes.”  
“Horcruxes? Listen, child, this is nothing to get involved with. Why don’t you go back to skateboarding in the park-”  
Tom bristled. “Excuse me, I was merely doing some research for a project I was hoping to finish before the month ended. I’ve already looked through almost every book I am capable of reaching and I have gone through what seems like all of the internet. I won’t bother you again, I promise.”  
“This stuff is bloody dangerous. It’s not a scary children’s book that you’d have your mother read to you at night,” Lucien Smith said.  
“My mother is dead,” Tom said shortly. “And so is my father. They were murdered before my third birthday. So if you could tell me more about horcruxes I would greatly appreciate it.”  
There was a long silence on the other end and Tom thought Lucien had hung up until he said, “how did you find me?”  
As Tom explained how he had come across the website and the phone number, he heard the sound of a keyboard clicking in the background and knew that the website and the photo sharing account would be long gone before the call ended. He was eternally grateful for having printed off the information beforehand.  
“One of my earliest grandfathers was an extremely wealthy, knowledgeable man, not like the idiotic riffraff that walks the streets nowadays,” Lucien said.  
“Of course, of course.” Tom had a feeling it would be best to turn on the flattery.  
“He was successful and ambitious and he wished to become immortal. Through years of study he finally discovered a mysterious object called a horcrux. When he realized that if he managed to split his soul and create a horcrux, it would be impossible for him to die. On the first of July in fourteen ninety-seven, he was attacked by an idiot old farmer that was living in poverty, desperate for money. He killed him. And suddenly he felt a burst of pain from inside his chest and realized that his soul was splitting. With his intent on becoming immortal and the brutal way that he killed that farmer he realized that he had successfully split his soul. He chose to embed his soul into a notebook. Through some complicated spell-work he had created something that allowed him to exist outside of his body. He wanted to create another horcrux but he realized that he would need to commit another murder, and before he could the farmer’s rabid wife killed him and destroyed the notebook before he managed to commit another murder. There is no knowing how she knew that he had managed to create a horcrux, and what object actually was the true horcrux.”  
Tom sat still, excitement and mania flooding through his body. Everything he needed was sitting next to him on the floor, printed onto three pieces of paper, and had been spoken to him by this Lucien man.  
“You didn’t copy anything from the website, did you?” Lucien said accusingly.  
“No, of course not,” Tom said quickly, though he was looking at the stolen pieces of information that were sitting next to him.  
“Good. Do not attempt what I told you, because if you get in too deep you’ll do worse than corrupt your soul and murder a few people. You could cause the universe to come crashing down.” And with that, Lucien ended the call, and Tom Marvolo Riddle realized that he had just begun his journey to become immortal.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own the character Tom Riddle. Sigh. He belongs to the wonderful world of Harry Potter, which I don't own either.

“Tom!” Tom’s seat mate, Anthony, hissed in his ear.  
Tom looked up and saw his math teacher looking at him expectedly, as if expecting an answer.  
“Sorry, could you repeat the question?” Tom said quickly, snapping out of his stupor. He’d stayed up until almost two in the morning reading about the information he’d obtained from his research in the library. He’d been uncharacteristically inattentive and absent-minded the whole school day.  
The teacher repeated his question and Tom gave the right answer, then he went back to dwelling on the information about horcruxes. The sheet of printed information was sitting in front of him, and he looked down and looked over it for what felt like the hundredth time. 

Now, if you wish to split your soul into a horcrux, take note that it must be a notebook. For a notebook is where you entrust your most personal secrets into, and if you were to come across another’s you could divulge more than their secrets, you could divulge their soul altogether. Take a journal. Purchase one that is not thin and economical. For if you are about to conceal a part of yourself into the book it cannot be substandard. Then, embellish and enhance it. Do what you want to make it yours, which will successfully empower the strength of your soul within it.  
Tom’s teacher droned on but Tom ignored him.  
Pour your heart and soul into the making of the notebook. Put things inside, put important and significant parts of you inside, whether it be your thoughts or your writings. For you are not simply making a small, menial project, you are making a part of yourself. What you are doing is transferring powers. When you have finished, place the book on your left and hold a calligraphy pen in your right, for with a pen anybody can divulge the deepest, darkest parts of their soul.  
“Tom!” Anthony yelped again.  
“What?” Tom snapped.  
“Your... your eyes!”  
Tom stared at Anthony suspiciously. The boy looked downright terrified and Tom had no idea why.  
“What about my eyes?” Tom asked, uncomfortably aware that a few of the students sitting around then were looking at the pair curiously, though the teacher was still talking.  
“They... flashed.”  
Tom raised an eyebrow.  
“No, I mean they changed for an instant, it was like they changed color or something...”  
“I have never witnessed my eyes to do anything of that sort,” Tom said shortly. He had no idea whether or not Anthony was making it up, or just being delusional out of fright. The small, light haired boy Tom sat next to had always been terrified of him.  
“Do you wear contacts or something?” Anthony said. Tom noticed that Anthony was beginning to sweat and tremble nervously. For the sake of the tiny boy sitting next to him, Tom tried to downgrade his annoyance so that they wouldn’t attract too much attention.  
“No, I don’t. You must have imagined it.”  
“But something happened!” Anthony persisted. Irritated, Tom leaned closer and whispered into his ear menacingly.  
“Just drop it, Anthony. There is absolutely nothing wrong with me or my eyes,” He glanced up at his math teacher and looked back down at the information in front of him once again.  
Now this is where the idea of soul-splitting becomes murky and enigmatic. By nature, one’s soul is whole and of one piece. The idea of creating a horcrux is, consequently, against nature. So in order to create a horcrux one must commit an act that is against nature. Now, there are many ways to do this, each more difficult than the last. The easiest is a murder. Manslaughter. The murder of an innocent is against nature, and therefore, a sufficient act to create a horcrux.  
Tom thought hard. It wasn’t so much the act of committing a murder that scared him, it was the idea of getting caught and the consequences of getting caught. Of course, he’d have to choose his target carefully. He wasn’t about to waste such a monumental act on just anybody. 

“Tom...” Anthony whispered. Shivering violently and sweating profusely, the small boy was bent over the desk, eyes closed and looking as though he was trying not to be sick.  
“Are you alright?” He whispered frantically, hoping that his teacher wouldn’t look over and realize that something was wrong, and then see his information. He folded the pieces of paper and stuffed them in his pocket, then looked back at Anthony. Suddenly, the boy leaned over his side of the desk and retched, and he heard a cry of indignation as the girl sitting across the aisle from wrenched her school bag out of the puddle of sick.  
“Anthony!”  
Tom stood up abruptly, staring at the boy next to him. Anthony seemed to have been having some sort of seizure. His eyes were rolling and he was leaning to one side, as if he was going to fall out of the chair. Tom was reminded wildly of a child who had lived in his orphanage for a year when Tom was four years old. The young girl had consistently had periods of odd seizures and random shouting. She used to scare him badly, but as Tom grew older he began to realize that her episodes could’ve been something otherworldly and not necessarily to do with health, for the girl was one of the strongest children in the orphanage, and she ate the most.  
Tom’s math teacher had finally stopped talking. With one look at Anthony, the math professor swept down the rows of desks to kneel next to him, who was now curled up on the floor, looking smaller than he ever had.  
“Anthony! Anthony, can you hear my voice?” Tom’s teacher was shouting. “Can you tell who I am?” The teacher hit the small boy across the face, and Tom, despite the fact that he knew it was necessary to keep the boy conscious, winced. Anthony was one of the smallest and most frail looking boys of his age Tom knew.  
Now almost the entire class was on their feet, staring at Anthony with confusion in their eyes, or staring at Tom accusingly, as if he’d caused Anthony to random fall ill in the middle of a lesson.  
“P-p-professor...” Anthony sputtered. “Wr-wright.”  
Professor Wright stood and used the pager in the classroom to call for the school’s infirmary, and within five minutes Anthony had been whisked out of the classroom by a team of medics.  
The class stood silently and stared out the door after Anthony as one of the medical workers walked up to Professor Wright. They exchanged a few terse sentences before the professor dismissed the class.  
“Well, class is over for today. Anthony will be fine, he has a history of epilepsy and he seems to have had a relapse today. It is fortunate that he had medical attention almost immediately.”  
The class, in a flurry of motion and talking, began packing up their things and leaving the classroom. The math teacher and the medic were still talking, and when Tom was about to leave Professor Wright called his name. The medic walked out of the room, giving Tom a piercing once over that made Tom feel entirely naked and want to fold his arms around his chest.  
“Tom. I need a word with you.” Professor Wright’s voice was wary and suspicious.  
“Yes, sir,” Tom said, nervousness leaking into his voice.  
“Do you know anything about what could have caused what happened just now?”  
“No, sir.”  
“Didn’t you know him quite well? You were his seat mate, after all.”  
“No, sir, nothing.”  
“Tom!” Tom jumped and looked Professor Wright in the eye.  
“The boy sitting next to you damn near died, and it’s still uncertain whether or not he will survive. Why are you reacting so woodenly?”  
“I’m sorry, Professor, it’s just that I’m very tired. Schoolwork and other things concerning my own... health have been keeping me extremely busy. I’m very concerned for Anthony but we were never friends.”  
Professor Wright stared at Tom shrewdly, as if he knew Tom was lying, which he wasn’t.  
“That’s odd, because before Anthony was brought into the emergency vehicle he asked everyone to talk to you. He said you were planning something extremely important.”  
Tom balked.  
“Are you serious?” He sputtered, all politeness and charm forgotten.  
“Yes, I am serious, Tom,” the teacher said. “Now, there’s no denying that you’re an excellent student. You’ve never gotten anything lower than a low A grade on a report card and you have no history of any detentions or trouble with students or other teachers, therefore I’ll give you the benefit of doubt. If you did anything to harm Anthony Kahn whatever you did will eventually be uncovered.”  
Professor Wright’s little speech had given Tom recovery time. “Sir, what he said wasn’t accurate. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking clearly; but I do not blame him in the slightest considering what he has gone through.”  
“Very well.” The teacher surveyed Tom once more and said, “off you go, Tom. It’s lunchtime and I daresay the line for food will be quite long.”  
Tom wanted nothing more than to go back to his apartment, but he was stopped several times in the hallways and staircases by intrigued classmates.  
“What happened in there?” Sarah, the girl whose phone Tom had used to call Lucien Smith, asked.  
“Nothing, he just asked me if I knew anything about Anthony’s... condition.”  
“What condition?” Sarah, who was rather short, jogged to keep up with Tom, who was walking as quickly as he could towards the staircase that led to the seventh floor.  
“I said I didn’t know anything, which is the truth,” he said, walking so quickly now he assumed he looked quite comical. Sarah gave up and fell back to talk to one of her friends.  
Tom was so desperate to reach his apartment that he ran blindly up the stairs, bumping into someone and sending a book flying out of their hand.  
“Watch it,” the person spat. It was Gayle, a girl in his grade. Tom knew her by default - everyone knew the newer kids, and Gayle had been among the pathetic batch that had started a year ago. Tom very suddenly realized that she could have passed for his sister, perhaps even his twin. They both had the same dark hair, calculating dark eyes, and tall, slender figure.  
“I’m terribly sorry,” Tom said coldly, picking up the book and shoving it into her left hand. Her right was holding what Tom presumed to be her lunch. He wondered where she was going, until he realized that Gayle probably ate by herself. Gayle was rarely seen with a large group of friends, or even a small group, for that matter.  
“Oh, I was supposed to tell you something,” Gayle said. For such a thin girl, her voice was surprisingly low.  
Tom raised an eyebrow.  
“Don’t leave your bedroom tonight. Eat dinner by yourself and do not talk to anyone else.”  
“Gayle, what the hell are you on about?”  
“Some lucky stars told me that you’ll go wrong. Maybe you’ve got all of the teachers and the kids here under your little spell, but I know there’s more to you than the intelligent, pretty boy act you’ve got going for you.”  
“And how are you so sure that this is the truth rather than your own little guess? Everyone seems to have different theories as to who I am and what I originally came from, you know.”  
“Because I know people. And I know that you aren’t a good person.”  
Tom took one step towards Gayle, anger brewing inside him. His eyes flashed scarlet for an instant and Gayle automatically stepped backwards, her eyes incredulous and cautious. For a second Tom wondered if Gayle, of all people, knew what he had been doing for the past three years, or knew what he wanted to become.  
“Do not tell me what to do,” he snarled. “And don’t assume things about people, because you never know how making the wrong assumptions could come back to hurt you.”  
Gayle’s expression changed quickly, passing through several emotions within the timespan of a few seconds. Fear, apprehension, humor, anger, then sarcastic.  
“You can’t scare me into doing what you want, Tom. I know what you’re doing. You can’t fool me like you’ve got the whole school under your influence.” Her voice was cold.  
Tom kept his face cool and unresponsive, but inside he grew more nervous. Could she know? Could she possibly know about the notebook?  
“No wonder you don’t have any friends, Gayle. If you talk to people like that,” Tom retorted.  
She huffed irritably and flounced away.


End file.
